npm install inquirerer

A wrapper around Inquirer to solve this issue: SBoudrias/Inquirer.js#166

Allows you to override properties passed in, and won't be asked interactively. This is huge when creating real production systems where scripts need to run automatically without human interaction.

Imagine this exists in a file myprogram.js:

import { prompt } from 'inquirer';
var argv = require('minimist')(process.argv.slice(2));

const questions = [
  {
    name: 'database',
    message: 'database',
    required: true,
    ...
  },
];

const { database } = await prompt(questions, argv);

To run interactively, just run node myprogram.js. However, if you want to override, simply do:

node myprogram.js --database mydb1

And will skip the interactive phase, unless more questions are unanswered.

If you set _: true, then you can pass an argument into the system and it won't need the parameter name.

const questions = [
  {
    _: true,
    name: 'database',
    message: 'database',
    required: true,
    ...
  },
];

const { database } = await prompt(questions, argv);

Now you can run with or without the --database flag

node myprogram.js mydb1

or equivalently:

node myprogram.js --database mydb1

const questions = [
  {
    _: true,
    name: 'foo',
    message: 'foo',
  },
  {
    name: 'bar',
    message: 'bar',
  },
  {
    _: true,
    name: 'baz',
    message: 'baz',
  },
];

const result = await prompt(questions, argv);

node myprogram.js 1 3 --bar 2

will treat argv as

{
  _: [],
  foo: 1,
  bar: 2,
  baz: 3,
}